A place of their own

Gomez family puts heart, muscle into Habitat for Humanity project.

Gomez family puts heart, muscle into Habitat for Humanity project.

August 01, 2008|RACHEL REYNOLDS Tribune Correspondent

Editor's Note: This is the first in a series of stories about the Gomez family, who are participants in the Habitat for Humanity of St. Joseph County home ownership program. The stories will follow the family through the process of completing class and sweat equity requirements, constructing their own home, working at jobs to ensure financing and finally moving in. By glimpsing the daily lives of the Gomezes, readers can appreciate the dream of owning one's own home. SOUTH BEND Daniel and Karina Gomez and their three children rent a tiny gray and white house on Webster Street in South Bend. Everything inside is neat and orderly, though some rooms are so small you can touch opposing walls at the same time by stretching your arms. Next door stands a boarded-up brown house. Weeds grow nearby. The Gomez family has dreamed of owning their own home for many years. And 2008 will forever stand out as the year their dream came true. "It means we're improving," said Daniel Gomez, 29. "Every year we try to get a house, but the car breaks down, the utilities are turned off, and we have to use the money on that. I can't believe Habitat for Humanity is helping us." The excitement in the family is palpable. The children, who sit quietly on a couch and have impeccable manners, light up when asked about moving into their own house. "It's good that we'll stay there for a long time," said Giovanny, 10, the oldest child. "We don't have to pay a lot of rent." Finances are tight for the Gomezes, who currently pay $600 a month in rent. "He's always worried about the rent, too," the mother, Karina, 29, said of her son. "He will say, can we go here, and I'll say no, we have to pay the rent." The Gomezes are among dozens of area families who are participating in the home ownership program of Habitat for Humanity of St. Joseph County. Participants must be selected for the program, go through finance and home maintenance classes, and help build other people's houses as well as their own. Over the years, volunteers have built more than 100 Habitat for Humanity homes in St. Joseph County. Families are selected to participate based on three criteria -- ability to pay, need for housing and willingness to partner, said Faith Olson with Habitat for Humanity. The Gomez family met all these criteria. They fall between 20 percent and 60 percent of the median household income for the area, which means they can pay the mortgage, she said. Olson said their current rent is too high. "They're paying more than 30 percent of their income toward rent for their current house, which we believe is unaffordable by our standards," she said. The family was willing to work hard to take part in the program. "When we talked to them, they were very willing to partner and put in their sweat-equity hours," Olson said. Karina remembered the day and the excitement in January when she received the letter announcing that they had been accepted into the Habitat for Humanity program. They had applied two years in a row. "I'm going to be so happy," Karina said of their new house. A walk around their current rental reveals a home that is tidy and spartan. The kitchen is maybe 10-feet-by-10-feet, no dishwasher, plain floors and little counter space. Upstairs, the parents sleep on a mattress on the floor because the stairwell is too narrow to move box springs up it. A couple of folded pink blankets on the floor beside her parents serves as the bed for 2-year-old Yahaira. The bathroom is perhaps 3 feet wide. Eight-year-old Diego sleeps in a tiny room nearby with a wrestling poster on the wall. Giovanny has part of a bunk bed set up in his room. "He wants a room where he can put his whole bed together," said his mother. "It's a firetruck. The pieces are under the bed." Diego added: "There's not enough room," attempting to explain his brother's partially erected bed. Both Daniel and Karina work. He is a customer-service representative at Old Fort Building Supply. She is a waitress at Bendix Family Restaurant on Western Avenue. Giovanny will be a fifth-grader at LaSalle Intermediate Academy, Diego will be a fourth-grader at Monroe Primary Center and Yahaira stays with her aunt during the day. On Saturdays the parents help build Habitat houses for other families. Every head of household must log 300 hours building other participants' homes and additional adults in the family must log 100 more hours before a family can begin construction on their own house. The Gomezes have also been attending three series of classes teaching about home maintenance, household finances and construction. Each class lasts up to eight weeks. "They teach you how to eat right," Daniel said. Karina added: "They teach you how to always write how we're spending our money." The children participate in Kids for Habitat. Through this program, Giovanny built a birdhouse and painted it green. "I'm going to hang it up on a tree," said Giovanny, planning for his new house. Diego also built a wooden tool box and wants to hang his certificate of participation on the wall of his new bedroom. The two brothers were awarded a golden hammer inscribed with "2008 Kids for Habitat Participant of the Year." The award is given to a child who goes over and above to help other kids. "When they said there was a tie, we didn't know it was going to be these two," said their father with pride, adding that the hammer is given to whomever puts forth the "most effort. Whoever jumps in to help. If someone's got a problem, they give a hand." Two-year-old Yahaira also has plans for the new house. She wants to plant flowers. "When we go to Wal-Mart, she always wants them," her mother said of the colorful annuals. "She asks, 'Can we take them?'" In their rental living room, the family excitedly passes around a drawing of their new Habitat house. The drawing is of a three-bedroom, two-story, maroon and gray house with four windows facing the front. It will be located at 617 Cottage Grove Ave. near Lincoln Way. It has no air conditioning and is modest. But it will be all their own. "I'm asking for two weeks' vacation in August so I can work on our house," the father, Daniel, said. "We're going to work pretty hard so it gets done faster."